This story is more than 30 years old.

Are we absolutely certain it's the same George Felix Allen?  (I know, it almost certainly is, but still.)

What was the warrant for?

If the charges were dropped, or if there was a trial and a verdict of "not guilty," isn't it unethical and, let's say, a reach to try to pin the charge(s) on Allen anyway?

Haven't we just violated the privacy of everyone else whose name is on that image?  (I realize this is a public record, but I'm still disturbed by the carelessness here.)

By all means, let's follow up to find out more.  But carefully, carefully.  Otherwise, in addition to descending to some really questionable tactics, we are inevitably going to end up tarring Jim Webb's campaign with what looks like an attempt to execute a desperation-based smear.

on Yahoo.com

After Matthews asked Sabato how he knows Allen used that word, Sabato answered that: "Because there's other evidence that I'm not going to go into on your show, Chris, sorry."

Link to USAToday

And this:

Therefore, I would expect there to be another bombshell in a day or two.

Or, Sabato could have been "communicating" that he is aware of other public documents, such as previous newspaper articles, TV interviews, lawsuits, traffic tickets, arrest records, or some similar form of documented evidence which would prove Allen used the *N* word.

While I want to emphatically state that I have no idea what the Albemarle County arrest was for, Sabato's statement to Chris Matthews led me to believe that there was a paper trail somewhere (i.e., "other evidence"), and that the paper trail would contain information related to racial slurs.  Sabato seemed to be discussing with Matthews the period of time related to Allen's college years. 

So far, this information is consistent with that.  It will be interesting to see what what else transpires.

OK...here's what I see as the problem

In 1973 George Allen was a registered Student at the University of Virginia.  As far as I can tell, he started in 1971 and finished in 1974.

All students at UVa must adhere to the Honor Code which stipulates that a crime committed in the town of Charlottesville constitutes an Honor violation and results in immediate expulsion.  This is my understanding having attended UVa as a graduate student in the 1990s.

Since George Allen was not expelled from UVa--in fact, he subsequently re-enrolled as a Law Student--it doesn't seem possible for this warrant to be for a felony or misdemeanor.  I suspect this warrant can only be one of two things:  a moving/traffic violation or, as mentioned above, a game warden violation. 

There could be a court file out there with George Allen's name on it stained with 40 year old deer blood, but I suspect this isn't it.
(oh well...)

Link to Frameshop...

by Jeffrey Feldman on Fri Oct 13, 2006 at 08:49:05 AM PDT

Having said that, I do think caution is appropriate.

Let this one go, guys.

The index for criminal cases is kept forever, even though the warrants and summonses themselves are purged.  If they weren't purged, they would overrun the courthouse.  The index is to all criminal cases in the General District Court.  This particular index is for cases arising in 1973 and thereafter until they went to a different system a few years later (there is another index for the criminal cases through 1972).  It does not distinguish between those that originated by summons and those that originated by warrant.  The index does not state what the offense was for.  It does not give the disposition.

The index shows an entry on 2/15/73 for George Felix Allen.  It gives a case number of 471K.  It says nothing further. 

I don't know if 2/15/73 was the date of the offense, or the date the case went to trial, or what.

There is no white-out on the page.  I could see no indication of any erasure or alteration of any kind.

Under the indexing system in effect at that time, the clerk would keep a page for all cases involving some one with a last name that began with A, and a first name beginning with G.  So George Allen, Gregory Adcock, and Gamaliel Azerbaijani would all appear on the same page.  When the cases are heard in the District Court, the warrants or summonses would be sent to the Circuit Court after a certain period of time (usually 30 days, though I don't know what it was at that time).  A Deputy Clerk in the Circuit Court would then write by hand the new entry, based on nothing more sinister than when s/he got around to it.

If George Allen says it was for fishing without a license, I can believe it.  We often have days here in Charlottesville -- even in February -- where the sun comes out, the wind is from the southwest, and the temperature rises into the upper 60's and 70's.  On such days, it would not be surprising if some UVA student were to decide that dropping a fishing line in the water were not a pretty good way to spend the afternoon, particularly if there were a brown beverage available.  There are a number of small lakes in Albemarle County that have houses that have been rented by UVA students for many years.  They aren't posh -- in fact, they are often dumps because the students who live there are living there specifically to be able to party without adult interference.  I have represented many a UVA student who got caught at a party at such a place.  I have also been in court when fish and game wardens have come in with cases involving fishing on those small lakes without a license.  One warden once explained to me that when the weather is nice, they LOVE to go out and look for folks fishing without a license.  Typically it has been nasty for the last few months and they are tired of being cold, or being in the office. 

I think that should dispel all of the feverish concerns and conspiracy theories articulated here.

Now -- as we have wasted all of this time, how many phone calls could we have been making for Jim Webb?

Let's get to work on what is important, guys.

Thanks.

That's the last little detail that puzzles me.

I agree with cvllelaw that this matter should probably be dropped. Virginia law specifies that the records of the general district court shall be purged after ten years, meaning that there is no paper record.  And too, I really don't think a charge dating back 33 years is all that important.  Lots of people do stupid stuff in college and lots of people have gotten the same break. 

There are two entries.  I went back to look, because I had not looked at the photo posted on line before I had looked the first time.  There are actually two books, and for the life of me I can't figure out why there are two books, and why something that is in one would not also be in the other when they seem to cover the same time period.  I asked the Court Clerk, who has been Clerk since back then (I have not been practicing law that long).  She chalked it up to changes in the requirements of state law as to how they maintain their records.  In any event, it is nothing sinister, and it is something that is applicable to everyone else who may have violated the law during that time period.

The fact that there are two entries means that there were two separate citations issued.  It is imposible to know if they were warrants or summonses, there is no indication of what the charges were, and there is no indication of the disposition.

Above the entry for George Felix Allen in the 1974 book, there is an entry for George Franklin Allen.  There is white-out in the entry for George Franklin Allen, in the column where the charging party is to be listed.  There were only two possibilities -- County of Albemarle or Commonwealth of Virginia.  It appears as though the deputy clerk who was making the entry started to make a mistake, and entered the wrong charging party.  It was standard practice then to use white-out to correct any error, though that standard policy was not uniformly followed.

The white-out issue is only relevant to this discussion if you believe that:

1.  George Franklin Allen and George Felix Allen are the same person.
2.  It matters for some reason whether he was charged with a violation of state law or county ordinance (it does not). 

Again --

take a chill pill, folks.

And realize that in most of Virginia, fishing without a license is a way of life, and if you start talking about that as a bad thing, Jim Webb loses the country vote.

What sort of lawyer? Prosecution, or defence? Because it might make a difference in the angle of your thinking...

Shortly after the 2000 S-election, my son sent me an uncomplimentary and obviously "doctored" photo of Bush. Sick at heart as I was at the election's results, I still rebuked him for sinking to the Rethug level in his approach; "unbecoming of a Democrat", I said. "Dishonorable", I said. "Mom, I love you for your idealistic naivete" he responded.

A lot of things have changed in the intervening 6 yrs. I have learnt that the Rethugs will fight dirty *every time* and laugh at you for being a sucker if you try to hang onto such outmoded concepts as "honor". According to them, you have to prove innocence, not guilt. And, recently, they've pulled even *that* rug from under our feet -- *anyone* can now be arrested and "disappered", without any recourse to law at all.

So, OK. They have robbed me of my last *shreds* of innoncence (one doesn't have much, when one has grown up in a communist ountry), and now I'm on a warpath, with as much wrath stowed in my housewifely quiver as I could pack. I no longer believe that we should "play nice". I no longer believe we should give them the benefit of doubt. I now believe that tit-for-tat is the only answer. I used to be a moderate but 5.5yrs of the Bush regime has made me rabid.

If Allen's campaign came up with similiar court entries listing Jim Webb's name, it wouldn't be waffling about the propriety of using those entries as weapons. They wouldn't think twice before asserting that Webb was a felon. They'd have made a big TV ad about it immediately, and left it to us to try and defend ourselves knowing that a defense always seems more lame than an attack.

So why should we be any different *on that score*? We're different everywhere else -- we care about the poor and the helpless, while Allen doesn't give a damn. We defend equality under the law for *everyone*, while Allen cherry-picks the "deserving" (judged by every $1000 of contribution). We *are* better than Allen and his supporters. But that doesn't mean we have to fill our boxing gloves with down, when they're filling theirs with lead.

The entries have Commonwealth of VA as plaintiff, not the Albemarle County. IOW, it's likely to be something more serious than a parking ticket. Perhaps there's nothing in the story; perhaps Allen has a perfectly good excuse *and can prove it*. But that's no reason not to push him to provide the proof.

As for it being an old story and (possibly) the result of a student's excess of exuberance (the entries cover 1973, 1974 and 1975)... The "anti-feminist" article that Jim wrote -- and Allen used to the max, as a weapon against Webb, was also written years ago (1978?) when Jim was "young and silly".

I'm told that the English language has a "saw": "what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander". I really see no reason why it should not be applied more often.

As usual, apologies for the excessive length of the posting

Look, the fact that George Allen may be a jerk in other ways, and the fact that he was a rich, privileged, football playing, beer-drinking boor when he was here from 1971 to 1975, does not change the fact that whatever the charges were in 1973 and 1974 had to have been pretty minor.  I don't trust Allen and Wadhams et al., but let's look at some realities.

I have talked with the Clerk of the Court, who is nominally a Republican, though not known as a partisan.  There is nothing about her explanations that I find incredible.  I have talked with the prosecutor at the time -- also a Republican, though he has not been partisan in a long time, and a very honest guy -- and he tells me that if the charges had been potentially jailable, he would have prosecuted them personally (the office was much smaller then), and he has no recollection of doing so.  Perhaps more importantly, he had no recollection when asked these same questions 15 years or so ago (probably when Allen ran for governor in 1993, though maybe for Congress in 1990).  Fish and game violations typically did not get prosecutorial attention.  Among other things that didn't get prosecutorial attention -- drunk in public, littering, traffic (unless DUI or something major),  and failures to appear on offenses that he would not have been involved in anyway. 

You have to realize a few things about the Charlottesville legal community.  There are lawyers, sheriffs, and clerks who are full of gossip, which they will share with locals but not with people they don't know.  They gossiped about Democrats when they were in power, and they gossip about Republicans know.  And about everyone else all the time.  The gossip mills are full of stuff about matters that were disclosed in court during George's divorce proceedings (though the file is now sealed -- perfectly legally -- and everyone is sworn to secrecy), but no one has anything to say about Allen when he was an undergrad.  That doesn't mean that he was a candidate for the priesthood -- just that he didn't get caught doing anything serious.

I'm not saying that people are morally wrong to be asking questions, but all of us would be better advised to make phone calls or go canvassing for Jim Webb.  Every bit of air time that is devoted to rumors about 33-year old fishing violations is a minute that does NOT get used to talk about Iraq, or jobs, or federal deficits.

And if your thought is, "Gee, how do I know that cvllelaw isn't a Republican plant," all I can say is that if you're thinking that, you're just ranting rather than researching.

"I'm not saying that people are morally wrong to be asking questions, but all of us would be better advised to make phone calls or go canvassing for Jim Webb."

I'm not a native speaker of English; I have a terrible time when I try to communicate, over the phone, with anyone whose speech patterns I'm not familiar with. And the *idea* of canvassing is enough to make want to shrivel up and die :) So I can't do those things. But I did have some training in "spin", back when I was growing up in Poland and the communist party was as dirty as ever the Republigoons are now, so I understand *that* part of the process. There's not much I can do (I do have a Webb sticker pasted on my purse and glare back on all who glare at me ) but asking questions is one of those things I'm capable of doing. As long as the questions are in a written form :)

I think phone calls are a waste of time and lose as many votes as they gain -- people regard them with the same disdain as they do telemarketing

Love the idea of the sticker on the purse

Lawn signs are great too (especially if you have a lawn)